The Money Vanishes

Thanks to the mortgage crisis, the private equity money that flooded Hollywood in recent years has dried up. This also affects indies. The New York Times profiles one would-be filmmaker who seemed to have everything in place:

Mr. Sanghoee saw the movie version as a $5 million to $7 million indie with broad appeal, maybe attracting a star like Jake Gyllenhaal.

But so many hedge funds and private equity investors wanted to sink money into the project that Mr. Sanghoee, himself holding down a day job at a New York hedge fund, pushed the needle higher. Soon the budget had tripled to $15 million. In October, he decided against a fund-raising trip to Dubai. “We don’t even need it now,” he said in an interview at the time.

--The True Story of a Script, Big Dreams and Vanishing Private Equity